Linux on Azure...and, how to tell which virtualization is in use?

My employer funds an MSDN subscription for me...which I have just used to get a Linux VPS on Azure :-)

How can I tell which virtualization is in use?

Some random things...this is the Medium VM (2x1.66Ghz CPU, 3.5GB RAM). Supposedly they're using SSD disk exclusively (not sure how I'd verify that). I accidentally provisioned in West Europe so I'm tearing down now to move to the states but I assume this is representative of their configs.

Linux (EL6) in Hyper-V is pretty slick with the kmod rpm loaded, KVM still kicks it's ass though. On a 16 disk array that I was pulling 500+MB/s with CentOS6 loaded on the machine, I am lucky to see 150MB/s in a CentOS 6 VM with the Linux Integration Services. I've yet to run GeekBench to see how it benches, but overall it's not terrible.

I believe Azure VMs work like EC2 - there is a certain amount of local disk attached and then you can create storage volumes and attach/detach those as you wish. In the Azure case, it's a 28GB root and 66GB mounted as "/mnt/resource". No idea where that name comes from - it's just an ext4 filesystem.

There are two important factors affecting the treatment of data. Firstly, knowing where it is physically located, as this determines the legal jurisdiction presiding over that data. For example, data stored in Germany is subject to German and EU law, whereas data stored in the U.S. is only subject to U.S. law. It’s also important to consider where customer records are kept, as sometimes they may be replicated beyond the raw data storage. For example, a company operating a public cloud may hold uploaded data in one place (the main published cloud location), but keep copies at its corporate HQ, which may be in another country.

Secondly, knowing who controls the data is key as some country laws place obligations on companies beyond that country’s borders. For example, since a U.S. company operating in Europe is still subject to the U.S. Patriot Act, the European customers using those services are exposing themselves to U.S. jurisdiction. It’s important to note that subsidiaries of U.S. companies are also subject to the same U.S. data access abroad.

And:

So, the question remains – for companies holding EU citizens’ data in Europe, does placing such data under the control of a U.S.-based entity expose them to legal consequences? The simple answer is yes. If a German company were to place their customers’ data under the control of a U.S. entity or subsidiary, they could be held liable for any subsequent data release.

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